Still Alive!

Happily I have had too much going on to keep up with blogging, but I still apologize. I am still here, still working, and still failing miserably at speaking Hungarian! Brief update on the past (wow) sixteen days:

1. Some nightlife, some potluck
Now this will sound silly, but having some good friends has been the best. From listening to a live Hungarian band to trying New Zealand food at Antony's apartment to celebrating an ex-pat magazine's fifth birthday with free cake... getting out in the city at night has been an adventure. 

We had an international potluck dinner! Kevin (from Arizona) and I wanted to make apple pie - amusingly it wasn't until I starting looking around Tesco for ingredients that it struck me that I didn't know flour/cinnamon/shortening/etc in Hungarian, so I spent forever walking down every aisle peering at ingredients trying not to buy baking powder instead of flour, for example. I couldn't find anything important, so we made bacon bbq burgers with cheddar cheese (which I found!- me to the skeptical woman behind the cheese counter: "cheddar. ched-dar. *pointing*). Unfortunately we overcooked the burgers but they still tasted like heaven/home when smothered with the bacon/cheese/barbeque-sauce combo.
Anyway my favorite thing was Hilmi's Kurdish fried vegetable things, yum. From Spain we had bread with olive oil and tomatoes; from Hungary pasta with paprika and chilled cherry soup; from New Zealand some sugary, poof-y fruit dessert - I'm forgetting some, but I know the Romanians brought wine and the Canadian brought cake.

2. 05/29: MISKOLC, Hungary             (Mee-shh-colts)
3hr train through Hungarian countryside - ate a lot of paprika chips and played a hundred games of Mafia
Arrived in a sleepy town with some closed shops, rode a city bus for quite some time - skeptical...

BAM we found the awesome Castle of Diósgyőr up against some beautiful hills:

 
 We also went to a lake and the (apparently) tallest waterfall in Hungary, which was actually not that tall. But still very cool!

The coolest thing we did in Miskolc (technically Miskolc-Tapolca) was swim in these thermal waters in a cave.  It was actually a network of tunnels - different rooms, a lazy river, some waterfalls... an outdoor pool part. It was so cool! Here's a picture I took from Google ----------->

So Miskolc was fun! If nothing else, it was really awesome to scavenge outside of Budapest with some really cool friends all day. And other parts of Hungary are really beautiful too.


2. Last weekend: VISÉGRAD, Hungary             (Vee-shay-grad)

This time a boat ride down the Danube! I was in heaven. Unbelievable views of Buda and Pest and some sun - such a good way to spend a few hours. There was another castle here - a more important one because Viségrad used to be the "royal seat" of Hungary, until the 15th century.  The majority of the day, however, we spent hiking up the steepest, muddiest, worst non-mountain ever on the hottest day since I got to Hungary. Really, check this hill out:

The tower you see is Solomon Tower, which is only a quarter of the way to the top. If you squint you can almost see the castle, which is on the very top of the hill. And you can't even see the bottom of the hill. It was ridiculous. Awesome views from the top though!

We also rode bobsleds ("luges"?) on this track somewhere around the castle.  That was fun too. 

Funny story: on the way up the track, before getting to the drop, my luge started getting rather close to Ralph the Brazilian guy's in front of me. 

Ralph (nervously pointing to sign): Keep twenty meters back!

Me (just before the collision): I'm an American - I don't know what that means!!

Anyway Ralph helpfully put a conversion calculator on my Facebook wall. 

Thanks, Ralph.

So much for being brief! I will save stories from Babahaz Ovoda, progress in my first Ugric-group language, and thoughts on life in Hungary for another post. Thanks for reading so many words, and I hope everyone is doing well at home!!

love

Emily